Herein is the use of magic items discussed from a perspective grim enough to fit the Warhammer world. Using these rules, the players will never know what hit them, although you might want to hint to them that all magick is dangerous. Note that the rules have not been tested so some number changes are probably necessary. Finally, here are introduced a few new magic items, ready to be used in your game.
Dangers of Magick |
Item Power |
Item Use
Corruption Impedance |
Creature CI Values |
Corruption Test |
Results of the Corruption Test
Thoughts |
An Alternate Look |
New Magic Items
Magick originates in the Warp, along with chaos. This makes all magick random and possibly dangerous to harness and use. This randomness shows itself in various strange and unpredictable effects when a spell is cast. This phenomenon is described elsewhere on these pages and is known as Darksurge. Warpstone is chaos solidified, carries great magickal powers and disastrous mutating effects. Rules for Warpstone Corruption are also described elsewhere on these pages. But what about magic items? Surely they must carry considerable amounts of magickal power within and therefore also danger.
This originally appeared in the Warpstone Corruption rules but as this is a related subject, I thought it could be used with magical items too. Every creature has a Corruption Impedance (CI). This is a % measure of the creatures resistance from being corrupted by warpstone. As a creature becomes corrupt from warpstone exposure, it's CI will lower, and therfore reducing it's resistance. The CI score can never be raised except in rare specific cases. If CI score of any creature ever drops to zero, it becomes a chaos spawn. Those creatures that cannot become spawns (e.g. daemons and elementals) have a minimum CI score of 10.
The table below shows the CI score of many creatures. If CI score is needed for creatures not listed, the list should give a good enough idea for it to be determined. Non-corpreal creatures are immune to the effects of warpstone and thus have no CI. This immunity also applies when someone is affected by the Elemental spell 'Become Etheral'.
0+10d10 = Daemons (this varies greatly and each individual
daemon could have a CI score of 10-100).
10+2d10 = Beastmen, Chaos creatures (most).
20+2d10 = Trolls, Wyverns.
30+2d10 = Ogres, Giant insects, Doppelgangers.
40+2d10 = Humans, Elves, Goblinoids, Normal animals (most),
Giants, Vampires, Amphisbaena.
50+2d10 = Dwarves, Gnomes, Treemen, Lizardmen, Troglodytes,
Fimir, Giant eagles, Dragon turtles, Corporeal Undead (most).
60+2d10 = Dragons, Zoats, Amoebas, Mould, Pegasi.
70+2d10 = Halflings, Unicorns.
80+2d10 = Skaven.
90+1d10 = Elementals (if GM decides they can be affected at all).
Magical items vary greatly in power depending on the magickal energies they contain, all from a lowly potion to the mightiest artefact. How dangerous and corruptive the item really is depends partially on this power. Simply count how many different abilities the item has and there you have the power level. For example, a spell ring with two different spells is level 2, an amulet of coal is level 1 and a sword +10/+2 is power level 3 (1 for each +10 or +1). Some powerful attributes do count as two power levels, this is up to the GM's discretion.
Chaos items add +2 to the power level.
Daemonic items add +3 to the power level.
Items containing warpstone add +1 to +3 to the power level.
Dawnstones subtract -1 from the power level.
How the item is used is also a factor in how dangerous and corrupting it is. Any magic items fall into one of four item categories: Active, Passive, Dormant and One Use. Each category is dealt with differently and described below.
Active - All items that are constantly active, working their magic on the character using it fall under this category. For example, any armour and shields, ring of enchanted jade, amulet of righteous silver and boots of speed. It does not include items that have charges and those that must be especially activated to use.
Passive - These are items that always have their power active, but are not worn by the character and thus not of use until he grabs them and actively uses them. Also, items that, when used, causes an effect to occur that lasts for some amount of time (over a round). All weapons fall under this category as well as items containing spells where the item must power the spell on (like zones).
Dormant - All items that are not constantly active and only have any effect if specifically activated when used, e.g. like spending a charge. These are all one round use items, that is, the user activates it in one round and the effect only lasts for one round. For example, amulets of coal, spell rings (with spells that can be cast and then forgotten), spell jewels and wands of onyx.
Single Use - They get a special category. This category can also cover other one time use items such as dusts.
The Corruption test is the roll when you test for whether the use of a magical item causes corruption in the respective character(s). This test is handled differently depending on what category the item used falls under. Note that the test is made seperately for every magical item the character is using. There is a -5 penalty to the test for each level of power the the item has beyond the first.
Active - Corruption resulting from the use of these items is checked for after every hour of use, roll against the creatures CI score.
Passive - Corruption resulting from the use of these items is checked for after their use is stopped, roll against the creatures CI score +30 minus 2 for each round of use and minus 1 for each round where the item is held ready but not actively used.
Dormant - Corruption resulting from the use of these items is checked for each time they are used, roll against the creatures CI score +10.
Single Use - Corruption resulting from drinking a potion is checked for when they are used, roll against the creatures CI score +30.
Results of the Corruption Test:
What happens next depends on the degree of success or failure on the modified CI roll. This can be anything between, and including, nothing and gaining a mutation as well as some side effects.
Critical Success (*) = Nothing happens.
Success by >29 = Nothing happens.
Success by 01-29 = T-test or suffer from a Minor Effect (ME) for half the normal
time period.
Failure by 01-29 = WP test with a +20 bonus or gain 1 Insanity Point (IP),
T-test or suffer from one ME.
Failure by >29 = Gain 1 Corruption Point (CP), WP test or gain 1 IP, Suffer from
one ME.
Critical Failure (**) = Gain d2 CPs, WP test or gain d2 IPs, Suffer from d2 MEs.
(*) A roll of 01-02 is a critical success, unless the modified CI is <30,
then only 01 is a critical success.
(**) A roll of 99-00 is a critical failure, unless the modified CI is >70, then
only 00 is a critical failure.
The effects of gaining Corruption points and Minor effects are described in the Warpstone Corruption page in The Gamesmaster section. As an optional rule you could decide that CPs gained from the use of magical items disappear more quickly than those gained by warpstone. This would probably mean you'll need to keep two seperate scores of CPs but it reduces the danger of magic items. Have one point automatically be removed every month or test against CI every week to see if a point gets erased. Alternatively, you could rule that each warpstone CP is the equivalent of two or even three magic item CPs.
Finally, these rules make magic items extremely dangerous so use with care. The characters would really need a hint as to the dangers of using a magic item. I like this danger for the immense roleplaying possibilities it offers.
Instead of the above rules, you could decide that items need the lifeforce of the user to work properly. Thus they drain from the stats of their user to power themselves. The ability to be drained depends on what sort of ability the item has. A ring of toughness +1 might drain the toughness of the wearer. A sword +10 to hit might drain weapon skill. An amulet of coal might drain from willpower (as it has a spell effect) or perhaps wounds (as it causes them).
How quick this drain is is entirely up to you but the character using the item should not be aware of it until he has become severely weakened enough to notice it. As the item grows more powerful and as the character uses it more frequently, the faster the drain should be. Also, the power of the item and how much it is used can be used to determine how fast the character gains the lost stats back, if he will at all.
Ring of Enhancement - This ring enhances spells cast by the wearer. The range, area of effect and duration are all increased to 150%. Magic tests to avoid these spells are made at -20. Unfortunately, this ring also increases the chance of darksurge by 100%. Some of these rings only work for certain types of spells or levels. Or both.
Ring of Invisibility - These rings make the wearer invisible as by the spell of the same name (see the New Spells page in the Magick section) and the wearer will remain invisible for as long as he has the ring on. Unfortunately, every single one of the 7 rings of invisibility that exist, are cursed. They will all betray the wearer by turning the invisibility off at the worst possible moments and if the owner has worn it sometime in the past (even if the character is not wearing it at that moment) the ring will turn on invisibility at inconvenient moments, only to turn it off again inconveniently. Note: for the ring to do that last trick, it must be within 12 yards of the character.
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